RB Formula 1 boss Laurent Mekies has said that his squad will enter the new campaign with the ‘freshness of a brand new team’, targeting marked performance gains under his leadership.
Following the retirement of long-serving team principal Franz Tost, former Ferrari racing director Mekies will lead RB in a new era for the Faenza-based outfit.
Rebranding from AlphaTauri to RB, 2024 welcomes a new look for the squad but also high expectations as it continues to strengthen its alliance with Red Bull.
After a slow start to the 2023 season, the team enjoyed stronger performances in the latter stages of the campaign after the addition of Red Bull’s rear suspension in Singapore.
The move helped raise the team from the bottom of the standings to eighth after the Abu Dhabi finale.
Mekies is hoping to see the outfit carry its season-ending momentum into 2024 with its challenger, the VCARB 01, ‘sharing what we can’ from the World Champions.
“It has been a long wait, with the gardening leave,” said Mekies of his new role having left his post at Ferrari following the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.
“And then it’s been some incredible weeks starting with the team here. It’s about the birth of a new team – that’s how we look at it,” the Frenchman told RACER.
“It’s very concrete, and of course, it’s a very special new team because it’s one that’s going to be built on an incredible basis and an incredible history that we are proud of. But equally, we look at it with the freshness of a brand new team.”
Mekies is not the only new senior appointment at RB and will work alongside CEO Peter Bayer, who was appointed in mid-2023.
Other high-profile appointments include Alan Permane who joins as Racing Director, Tim Goss as Chief Technical Officer and Guillaume Catellani as Deputy Technical Director.
Despite the ‘refreshed’ team, Mekies asserted there are still a lot of areas in need of improvement before the team can re-establish itself towards the front of the midfield.
“My job so far has been about understanding the team, it’s about understanding the people, and it’s about understanding where our strengths and weaknesses are,” Mekies continued.
“It’s very much the activity of this first weeks, and then once you do that you then start together to reinforce the team in all the areas where you feel a step is needed.
“The truth is we want to see improvements in every single area, and we think this is how we will achieve a real step in competitiveness. So it’s not the shortest route but we feel it is a route that will take us consistently to the sharp end of the midfield, where we want to compete.
“We have the approach to build these foundations – it may take us a bit of time and it may mean that the first part of the season is a bit more difficult, but we feel it is the right approach if we want to be serious about our mid-term targets.”
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